


wasteland, baby, i'm in love (i'm in love with you)

by kluxbusters



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Detroit Red Wings, Developing Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, yea you read that right i wrote a red wings fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23337943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kluxbusters/pseuds/kluxbusters
Summary: 5 times that Dylan notices Tyler's hands, and one extra for good measure.in all its simplicity, this is a story about dylan loving tyler and his hands. in all its complexity: this is a story about being known, being seen, and being loved anyways.
Relationships: Tyler Bertuzzi/Dylan Larkin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	wasteland, baby, i'm in love (i'm in love with you)

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you or someone you know is in this story, click off now. This is a work of fiction and casts no aspersions on those mentioned within it. Go watch Knives Out or something.
> 
> please don't read my works on your public podcast or repost them onto a public site. 
> 
> CW: mentions of blood and injuries from fighting, also (mentioned) homophobia. 
> 
> this is literally 3K of dylan swooning over tyler's hands. also did you know that dylan is listed as taller than tyler? cause that was a shock to me. additionally, tyler has a lot less fights in his NHL career than i thought. 
> 
> a good song to listen to while reading this: NFWMB by hozier, specifically the line where he says "give your heart and soul to charity, cause the rest of you, the best of you, honey, belongs to me"  
(title from 'wasteland, baby' by hozier.)
> 
> thanks to amy for inspiring this one, and for listening to me scream in her dms about it for a week.

_ **ONE. ** _

Tyler’s hands are scabbed over the first time Dylan meets him, splitting red knuckles on full display as Tyler reaches out a hand for Dylan to shake.

“Hey, good to meet you,” Dylan says. “I’m Dylan. Larks, for short.”

“Tyler,” The kid says. “Berts, Ty, Tuzzi, or whatever. For short, I guess.”

“Good to meet you,” Dylan says, and means it.

“Yeah, likewise.” 

The next time Dylan sees him, the cuts on his hands are open, knuckles an angry red against the pale beige of his skin.

“Hey,” Dylan says, grabbing Tyler’s wrist. “What’s going on? Why are you bleeding?”

“No reason,” Tyler says, jamming one end of his fist into his mouth and sucking the blood off.

“Do  _ not _ do that,” Dylan says. “I’m taking you to the trainer’s to get these bandaged.”

Tyler shakes his hand out of Dylan’s grasp in one motion, which would be embarrassing if Dylan hadn’t already looked at his penalty minutes.

“Okay, not the trainers,” Dylan says, grabbing Tyler’s wrist again. “The bathroom then, at least let me wash the cuts.”

“Fine,” Tyler sighs, and lets Dylan lead.

“How’d you even get these?” Dylan says once Tyler’s sitting on the sink, hand outstretched for Dylan to clean.

“Why, are you gonna snitch?” Tyler asks.

“No.”

“I punched another call-up.”

“Why would you do that?” Dylan exclaims.

“He said something I didn’t like.”

“If it’s about a chirp, you gotta let it go, there’s way worse than that in the show,” Dylan says.

“He called his liney a homo because the dude missed him on a pass, okay?” Tyler grits out, and instantly looks away. “I don’t like that shit.”

Dylan takes a moment. Stares at Tyler, this backwoods country boy from Ontario, and wonders how a kid like him turned out like this, someone who would punch someone for being homophobic. Wonders if it means anything else.

“Okay,” Dylan says easily, and goes back to what he was doing, Tyler’s hand resting in his. They finish up easily, and it’s as they’re heading back towards the ice that Tyler reaches a hand (bandaged, but sure of itself) towards Dylan.

“Can we re-introduce ourselves? I’m Tyler.”

“I didn’t think we needed to, but I’m Dylan.”

“I just felt like a jerk the first time I met you. I didn’t forget your name,” Tyler explains, eyes flickering to Dylan’s.

“I didn’t forget yours either. Even though you were a jerk,” Dylan says, shouldering Tyler into the boards that line the ice.

Tyler shoves him back, fingers hard against Dylan’s bicep.

_ **TWO.** _

The team has a day off the next day, but Dylan’s foot is still fucked, so he tells Tyler to come over and stay the night. 

“I can’t wait until your boot’s off and we can go out and  _ do _ stuff,” Tyler says, pulling Dylan’s ankles into his lap.

“I don’t have to have it on all the time,” Dylan shrugs, leaning down to unstrap it from his leg. “Just during the regular day.”

“So a 9-5 type of thing,” Tyler laughs, helping Dylan take it off, fingers gentle on Dylan’s ankle.

“Exactly,” Dylan says.

They squabble over what to watch for a bit, before deciding on a movie they’ve already seen a couple times before.

“Gimme,” Tyler says, grabbing at Dylan’s thigh.

“What?” Dylan says, but goes where Tyler moves him, sliding down the couch when Tyler pulls Dylan’s feet back into his lap.

“Just shh,” Tyler says.

Tyler starts rubbing just above Dylan’s ankle, careful not to press too hard on his foot, and moves up to his calf.

Dylan settles into the touch, focuses on the movie, and is just starting to become one with the couch when Tyler tickles up the side of his calf, making Dylan jump.

Dylan reacts out of instinct, jumping off the couch and landing on his bad foot.

“Ow, fuck!” He yells, starting to fall backwards. Tyler catches him, a hand under his armpit, fingers curving up towards his shoulderblade. 

“Let’s get you to bed, alright?” We can finish the movie in bed.”

“Wow, buy a guy dinner first, huh?” Dylan exhales hard in pain.

“Shut up, Larks,” Tyler laughs, moving so he’s in front of Dylan but still supporting him.

“Am I hopping on?” Dylan asks.

“Yeah,” Tyler grunts as Dylan hops onto his back.

It’s not a long walk to Dylan’s bedroom, but it feels like it is, Tyler staggering with every step, fingers squeezing the bottom of Dylan’s thighs.

Dylan kind of zones out for the walk, just thinking about Tyler’s fingers digging into his thighs, the way they feel like brands on his skin, fingertips red-hot through Dylan’s team-issue sweatpants. 

It ends when Tyler unceremoniously throws Dylan onto his bed, Dylan landing on his back, hands in the air like a baby.

“You good?” Tyler asks, standing over him, the TV still on in the background.

“Yeah,” Dylan replies, and Tyler walks out of the room. He comes back a minute later, with a bag of chips and a bottle of ibuprofen. Tyler drops the chips and the ibuprofen on the bed, and heads to Dylan’s bathroom, where a bottle of lotion rests on the counter.

After they arrange themselves, Tyler makes that grabby hand motion from before again, and Dylan lifts his foot into Tyler’s lap.

This time, there’s no surprises, no ticklish spots that catch Dylan unaware, just the gentle press of Tyler’s fingers into skin, the feeling sticking around long after Tyler’s fingers leave. Dylan isn’t looking—his eyes are closed and his head tilted back, but he’s sure that if he looked down, his skin would be whorls of color and lines instead of the plain white it was when he looked away. It’s always like that, with Tyler, as if there’s a world of color beneath his skin.

_ **THREE.** _

The truth is, Dylan doesn’t like driving. He doesn’t mind doing it, and it’s much better to drive than to take public transportation or  _ walk _ everywhere (not to mention the amount of chirps he’d get from the team if he got a chauffeur), but he doesn’t like it. So when Tyler offers to drop him off at his parents’ place before heading back for the bye-week, Dylan instantly agrees.

“You sure it’s not too out of your way?” He asks the day before they’re supposed to leave.

“I’m bringing Fabbs too, need someone to keep me from killing him an hour again,” Tyler smiles, throwing a sweatshirt over his shoulder. 

“I can pay you back, for the gas money and everything,” Dylan offers, rushing to follow Tyler out of the locker room.

“No need,” Tyler says. “Just get some snacks for the road and we’ll call it even.”

Tyler picks him up early on Saturday morning, long hair still ruffled by sleep. Dylan’s ready to go home, in sweats and a worn red-wings tee, but Tyler looks like he’s about to go to clubbing or something, in jeans and a flannel unbuttoned down to his navel. Fabbs is a motionless heap in the backseat, wrapped in a blanket and already asleep. Dylan ducks into the front seat, already pulling up directions to the closest Tim’s. 

Tyler’s a good driver, Dylan realizes quickly. Is able to focus on the road and maintain conversation, can grab a cheeto out of the bag with one hand without jerking the car around. 

Can do pretty much anything without much trouble, Dylan notices, fingers of one hand always wrapped loosely around the wheel. There’s still a splint on his ring finger from a fight earlier that week, and Dylan watches it glint in the morning sun. 

Dylan watches Tyler notice the orange cheeto residue on his right hand, watches as he brings his hand to his mouth, sucks the dust off, mouth hollowed around the two fingers. It’s a thoughtless movement, the kind you only do when you’re alone or forget you’re with someone else, and it catches Dylan in the chest, pulls until he feels like his beating heart is exposed. Dylan spins around, stares out the window of the car and watches the fields go by, tries to adjust his pants without being too obvious. The farmland whips by, long stretches of green and yellow like balls of yarn against the blue sky.

They stop for gas after what seems like hours on the road, even though the clock on Dylan’s phone has only turned from a 7 to an 8. 

“Hey, Fabbs,” Tyler says once they’re all back at the car.

“Yeah?” Fabbs says, awake after draining a large coffee from Tim’s.

“Would you mind driving for a bit? I wouldn’t usually ask, but my finger’s starting to hurt like a mother.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Fabbs says, motioning for Tyler to toss him the keys.

Dylan watches the arc of the keys of the air, the way Tyler’s hand stays cupped after the keys are in the air.

“Your finger doesn’t hurt too bad, right?” Dylan asks, nudging Tyler’s shoulder with his own.

“Don’t worry about it,  _ captain _ ,” Tyler teases, despite Dylan telling him to shut up.

“You’ll jinx it,” Dylan says, trying valiantly to ignore the way Tyler’s hand stretches across his shoulderblade. He may be an inch taller (at least according to NHL.com), but he doesn’t feel it, never does when the long line of Tyler’s body is pressed against him.

Tyler lets go after a second and hops into the front seat, but Dylan swears he can still feel the heat of Tyler’s fingers, burning through the cotton of his t-shirt.

_ **FOUR.** _

Dylan’s asleep when it starts, avoiding the cold of Detroit winters by nestling inside Tyler’s blankets. There’s hours before his alarm goes off, even longer before morning skate starts, but he wakes up all the same, pulled into consciousness by the feeling of fingers on his skin.

And of course it’s Tyler, his fingers tracing along the line of Dylan’s skull before sliding around to the back of his neck, tangling in the little tufts of hair he finds there.

“What’s going on?” Dylan mumbles, still clumsy with sleep. 

“Nothing,” Tyler hums, propping himself up on one elbow, the other arm still reaching across the sheets to pet Dylan’s neck.

Dylan decides two things, in that moment: one, that Tyler is an unstoppable force, and two: that  _ whatever  _ Tyler’s doing feels too good to try and stop. So Dylan settles back into the covers, closes his eyes as Tyler’s hands reach around to his front, roll him onto his back.

He does open his eyes when he feels Tyler’s weight settle onto him, Tyler’s knees on either side of his waist, but he closes them again when he sees Tyler smile softly.

In between one breath and the next, there’s a touch, light, on the top of his eyebrow, and then a second later, fingers carding through Dylan’s curls, right at the top of his head.

Tyler’s fingers catch in his hair, tangled by sleep, and tug Dylan’s head in one direction, Tyler hissing out a  _ “sorry” _ as Dylan scrunches his eyes shut in pain. Tyler’s fingers pull back, out of his hair, and Dylan chases them, pushing the side of his head into Tyler’s palm.

Tyler takes advantage of Dylan’s sleepiness, and positions himself so both his hands are under Dylan’s head, cradling it.

It’s silent in Tyler’s apartment, but it’s easy for Dylan to slip into a daydream, imagine a world where they wake up together and there’s the patter of little feet—children’s feet—on hardwood floors, the familiar noises of hockey bags slamming on the floor, the whines of a puppy lost in the whirlwind of noise that Tyler and Dylan will share, that they’ll bring with them for the rest of their lives. 

In the back of his mind, he can see it all; Tyler’s fingers as they hold their first kid, curling around the hospital-issue blanket. Can see Tyler’s hands, huge against the hands of their toddler, hand-in-hand as they walk down the street. Can see those fingers curled around a stroller, walking somewhere in Detroit, a ring glinting in the sun.

Fingers push through Dylan’s hair again, and the daydream ends, fading into the morning sunlight. He opens his eyes to Tyler, still straddling him, and reaches his hands out for something, anything, everything. His fingertips touch the skin of Tyler’s shoulders, and Dylan follows the slope of his muscles, the lines of his tattoos down to his biceps, his elbows, his hands, always his hands. Dylan twines his fingers between Tyler’s hands, and holds on tight.

_ **FIVE.** _

They’re going to a Tigers game on Friday, and Dylan’s throwing out the first pitch—just another stop on his not-captain-captaincy tour. 

“Can you just. Just shut up and throw the ball?” Dylan asks.

“It’s not that serious, Larks,” Tyler laughs, tossing the ball up in the air.

“I don’t wanna fuck it up, okay?”

“You’re not gonna fuck it up. It’s a baseball toss, how many times have you thrown a ball?” Tyler throws the ball anyways, and it makes a loud smack against the leather of Dylan’s glove.

There’s only a little bit of light left in the sky, but the floodlights give Dylan enough light to stare at Tyler’s hands, take note of where they’ve been rubbed red by the too-small glove he has on.

Tyler had broken the tip of his finger stopping a puck this season, and it’s still crooked, still curving after the ball leaves his fingertips.

The light in the sky’s changed now, all blooming oranges where quiet twilight used to be. Dylan stares up, up, up as the colors move and change, oranges swirling into magentas and purples before his very eyes. From home base, Tyler does the same thing, head tilted back. 

“Hey, look,” Tyler says, and Dylan does, eyes tracing from the back of Tyler’s neck, dark hair curling against the bright sky all the way to his pointer finger, outstretched and pointing into the distance.

Dylan’s eyes trace tree tops and the unfurling crowns of clouds, but he gives up on whatever Tyler’s trying to show him within minutes. His eyes trace back to Tyler, over the clouds illuminated by the setting sun, over the dark trees swaying in the wind, and land on Tyler’s face, hopelessly earnest.

“What?” Tyler asks after he hears the smack of Dylan’s glove against the dirt. “What are you doing?”

There’s a warm wind against Dylan’s back as he walks over to Tyler, and it sticks his shorts to the back of his thighs, pushing him towards Tyler. 

A lot of things have been pushing him towards Tyler recently—hockey, teammates, even this spring wind, as gentle as it feels. And who is Dylan to deny all that?

“Dyl, what are you doing?” Tyler laughs, stepping back as Dylan keeps going.

Dylan takes a moment to look as he finally gets within touching distance of Tyler, takes a moment to notice the way Tyler’s hair curls over his ears, the way the ends point to his tattoos. And then Dylan kisses Tyler.

Tyler laughs into his mouth, surprised, but kisses back fiercely, his fingers along the hard line of Dylan’s jaw.

Dylan takes stock of that too, the way Tyler’s fingers feel at the base of his skull, the way Tyler’s hair is soft when Dylan curls his fingers into it.

They break apart, foreheads leaning against each other, bodies outlined in the orange sunset.

Dylan reaches up, grabs onto Tyler’s fingers, brings them down by his waist. Lets go of it for a second, running back to pick up the baseball glove from where he dropped it, leaving Tyler standing alone.

He grabs Tyler’s hand again, dragging him towards the car. Relishes the feeling of the hand in his, the way the calluses on Tyler’s hand catch against the ones on his. Takes a moment to see if he can feel Tyler’s pulse, thudding, sure, in his palm or his fingertips, and when he can, smiles a bit to himself.

“You taking me home, Larks?” Tyler asks, once they’re in the car, words soft in the spring air, and Dylan smiles.

“Fixing to,” Dylan says, and reaches across the gear shift to hold Tyler’s hand.

_ **+** _

There’s a warm wind blowing through the farmhouse, curtains billowing in the breeze. Dylan can hear it behind him, knows that something’s probably been knocked over, but all he can see is Tyler, hair curling in the wind, smile lopsided but stretching across his face all the same. He’s always had tunnel vision when it comes to Tyler, always will.

“When I met you, your knuckles were split open, an angry red. You had just had a killer season in the O, 98 points and everything, but your hands were the first thing I noticed about you,” Dylan says, sheet of paper clutched in one hand. 

“And then I kept noticing them,” Dylan continues. “I couldn’t stop. I kept thinking about how they looked wrapped around a bottle of beer, or holding a hockey stick, and when we were doing that learn to skate event I couldn’t stop thinking about how your hands were so big compared to the kids,”

“Woah, let’s keep it PG, here,” Someone—Fabbs, probably—calls, and the crowd erupts into laughter.

Dylan looks to the officiant, who nods, and continues. “I started to imagine how those hands would look holding our first child, or what they would look like teaching them how to play hockey, even how they would look when you were old, wrinkled and spotted.”

Tyler scrunches his nose up in clear distaste, and Dylan stifles a laugh. 

“Your hands were the first thing I noticed about you. And that’s one of the reasons it feels so important, so monumental, that I get to do this,” and Dylan slides the simple, gold band with a diamond inset, onto Tyler’s hand, and holds his breath.

“With this union, I now pronounce you married,” The officiant says, closing the book, and gesturing for them to kiss, but Dylan’s already moving, has been since that spring day and the sunset, since that morning wrapped in the sheets, even since he held Tyler’s bloodied hand in his for the first time. 

He and Tyler meet in the middle, crash into each other, suits rumpling on impact. Tyler curls his hand around Dylan’s jaw, fingertips light on the bone, and smiles into the kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> did you know that tyler bertuzzi got into 15 fights in his first year in the OHL? i didn't either. life is crazy.
> 
> anyways, this was my attempt at a 5+1 fic, and writing something a little longer for a quick fic. i hope you liked it!
> 
> please leave me comments, they sustain me when hockey cannot.


End file.
